“The Journal of Wall Grimm” 42: Lauren & the Castaway Christmas

Ok, here’s what happened with Lauren. It is a brief, yet shocking tale. I was working a lot more as Christmas was approaching so it was busier. Sharly hired a couple temporary second people, but she was smart about it. She must have interviewed 20 out of about 100 applications. How the hell did I get so lucky? Once she narrowed it down to 3, she had them come back for a second interview so I could meet them as well. It was a high school kid, a married mother of 3, and a cute 27 year old. Sharly chose the kid and the mother because she could only hire two people. She told me that she didn’t hire the girl because of the way we were looking at each other, there were sparks flying. She actually said that there were sparks flying. Sharly said she didn’t want us sneaking off in the backroom to fool around. She’s right though, we probably would have.

Anyway, I’m working with this kid through the holiday and past it, right up until New Year’s. After Christmas the kid comes in and asks Sharly if he can put up some flyers and she said ok. They were a missing person flyer with a photograph of Lauren on it. Turns out she was only 16 years old and went to his high school. She’d been missing since October and he was starting to get scared for her. I don’t follow the news so I’d been missing reports of it. I had no idea she was that young. I thought she was 19 the youngest. It was all so suspicious. She never left my apartment and she only had the one set of clothing. She walked around naked or in my clothes a lot at the beginning until Morgan brought her some clothes.

So, I brought the flyer to her and asked her what that was all about. She told me she ran away but she wouldn’t say why. I told her that I wasn’t in any position to be taking care of her and that I’d never take advantage of her either. I’d never have had sex with her if I knew she was that young. She said she didn’t want to end up in the system or go into a foster home, she was scared. Unfortunately, I didn’t know what to do so I told her to just go through the formalities, and call me if she needs me. In the end, after time in a group home, she was sent home where her family could work things out based on court mandates. So hopefully everything works out for her. Makes me sad. I should have asked her sooner what her deal was. It bothers me that not only was she sleeping with Randy, then me, in order to have a place to stay, but also that I actually perpetuated that without any thought that maybe something was up. She called me a couple weeks ago and said that her family is working things out, they’re getting family therapy and individual therapy, and her dad’s getting anger management. Her mom called not long after and thanked me for taking care of her. This just made me feel more guilty.

Anyway, we did have a good Christmas. I only went to my folks’ house for a short time because I wanted to stay home with the castaways aka Lauren and Pete. The week before Christmas, I borrowed some money from Sharly. Pete and I took the money and went and got a tree and some decorations. We came home with it and Lauren didn’t know we were doing that, so she was all excited. We put the tree in the stand and that was a fucking pain in the ass but we got it up. We put lights on it and ornaments that we got, and a star on top. Then we popped popcorn, got real high, and strung popcorn and cranberries. It took so long that at some point we decided to take acid because we figured the time wouldn’t seem so bad. Then after we strung it, hours and hours later I think, we realized we should have put the popcorn cranberry garland up before the ornaments. So we just kind of laughed the entire time.

Lauren was so happy with the Christmas tree that Pete and I decided to buy her a bunch of presents to put under it and plan a little family celebration of our own. Morgan took us out to help us buy her some girly stuff, because Lauren’s very girly. We bought her clothes and make up and nail polish and lotion and bubble bath, stuff like that. I also picked out a girly teddy bear for her, because Lauren’s kinda cuddly, so I wanted to give her something to cuddle while I was at work.

Pete and I got some rum and egg nogg, and bought an Elvis Christmas cd and a yule log dvd. On Christmas day we ordered Chinese food. We put on Santa hats and gave Lauren the presents. I’ve never seen anyone so happy in my life.

But now she’s gone and I miss her and thoughts about her make me sad, and I wish I could go back and do it all over again. I’d let her stay and take care of her and not have sex with her. How was I supposed to know? If it wasn’t for the legalities, I would have let her stay here permanently even after I found out she was a runaway. But she’s gone, and at least we can stay in touch. Her mom said I can visit anytime, so I’ll probably do it. But I just can’t seem to stay clean long enough to get the balls up to do it. I don’t want to go there high or drunk, but I don’t know how not to do that.

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Well, I think the legal age of consent in Massachusetts is 16, and he didn’t know anyway. I think he’d only be in trouble if his parents wanted to press charges for something, but they weren’t interested in that. So he’s pretty much clear of any potential charges.